Today’s date is 4 June, 2025. The following was originally published 4 June, 2018.
50 years ago, the 4th of June fell on a Tuesday.
In consecutive shifts my mother and then my father divided the day by driving small groups of voters from nursing homes to the polls where Robert F. Kennedy’s fight to win the California democratic primary was being waged.
During my mother’s shift, squeezing as many as 5 elderly but determined Kennedy supporters at a time into our Dodge station wagon, my father took me into the Ambassador Hotel’s Embassy Ballroom where I hoped I would see Senator Kennedy, but instead, experienced only the incredibly blinding heat and glare of television lights. I had met Senator Kennedy two years earlier in New Albany, Indiana. I know I was excited at the prospect of meeting him again. He was alive when I fell asleep in a room upstairs before the results of the election were known.
He was still alive, but mortally wounded, when I awoke early the next morning and found, to my surprise, my father was awake and in front of the television, sitting with his hands clasped in his lap, leaning forward, watching the screen. I had never known my dad, a full-time professional musician, to be awake before late, late morning or noon. He hadn’t slept. Only I. Nobody else had slept. I may have asked what was going on. What I remember my father saying was this:
“Somebody should take the guy who did this and machine gun him against a wall.”
That’s how I learned what had happened. Senator Kennedy lived 25 and a half hours after being shot. He died at 1:44 am, 6 June, 1968. He was 42 years old.
Be glad you weren’t there.
ADDENDUM
6 June, 2020
There are times when experience disrupts and displaces whatever “normal” might have been. Today we are living through a daily assault on the continuities upon which we have always relied; continuities that unite rather than divide and explain rather than bewilder; continuities that help us to define where and who “we” are, so that participation, without fear, is possible.
Fifty-two years ago, my personal life and the continuities that I, as an eight-year-old, associated with “normal” were disrupted, irrevocably.
Many of my Facebook friends will be aware of something I wrote on this anniversary date two years ago regarding what I remember about 4 June, 1968.
For most of my life I was unwilling and unable to discuss, analyze, or even admit that I had been there, at the Ambassador Hotel, with my parents on that devastating occasion. Although I was asleep at the time of the shooting, my parents were not. A few years ago, because of something that had been artfully crafted by my friend, Phil Dragoo, which pertained to the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy for posting on a now defunct JFK forum, I publicly admitted what I had never told anyone: “I was there.”
That single admission was the first in a series of necessary steps for me to examine, deeply and honestly, the meaning and consequences of Senator Kennedy’s murder in relation to myself and my family. The short version is this: His death ended my childhood and destroyed the continuity of everything I had known and taken for granted while traveling across this country with my mother and father. It also set the course of my intellectual and emotional paths, alternatives to which I will never be able to consider.
It was not until that first acknowledgement, inspired and made possible by my friend’s creative posting on profound loss for which 1963 and 1968 are indelibly linked, I began to see that my parent’s lives were altered; their alcoholism was a direct result of disheartened grief; and I was traumatized my entire life by the effects of being in relatively close proximity to such an immense tragedy.
Until the period of the last five weeks of my father’s life, neither of my parents ever discussed the assassination with me. I understand now that they were not neglectful towards me about such a life changing experience; I see now and have come to accept that they could not have helped me, their only child, because they truly didn’t know how to help themselves. They had no solutions; they simply drank.
I will say this, sincerely: I did not realize how damaged I was until a small number of cherished friends and mentors involved themselves, meaningfully, to influence the necessity of dealing with this issue by talking about it.
Among those beautiful friends and teachers who have helped me, I include Malcolm Blunt, Dr. John Newman, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Professor Peter Dale Scott, Bill Simpich, Dan Hardway, Jefferson Morley, Heather Tarver Fear, Stu Wexler, Larry Hancock, Charles Drago, Pat Speer, Debra Conway, Sherry Fiester, Jay Harvey, Bart Kamp, Greg R. Parker, Jay Miles, Dr. Josiah Thompson, Dan Alcorn, Jim Lesar, and one other without whom I would be elsewhere in this process and this post would not be possible, my dearest friend, Darlene. This is what she said to me:
“I was thinking about our last conversation, and your feeling as a small child that you could have done something to save RFK– I am sure this is not news to you, but I keep thinking that you have, of course, spent a good part of your adult life saving him, or at least his legacy. Not many people can say that they have turned tragic events of their childhoods into something positive.”
It is she whose clarity and insight has been directly impactful, speaking from her heart in such a way as to expand my emotional awareness, which has allowed me to see, objectively, that it was possible for a young child to be exposed to tragedy, to the violent deaths of his heroes and, despite internalizing the trauma, to have chosen a path of positive engagement, deep commitment to principle, and appreciation of the constructive benefits of doing more with your suffering than just grieve. I am privileged and forever thankful to those who allow me to participate in a cause which I find meaningful and gratifying.
So, 52 years ago the 4th of June fell on a Tuesday. Sitting with my father during the final days of his life in late January of 2015, I decided that I should ask him about that night. His first sentence was the end of the conversation. He said, “I heard the shots coming from the kitchen pantry.”
Be glad you weren’t there.
© 2025 AARC. All rights reserved.
*****
******
JFK CONVERSATIONS with ALAN DALE
*****
5 STARS – Extremely useful information on less well-known aspects of the JFK case
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2021
Not since the release of Oliver Stone’s landmark film JFK has the world’s attention been so focused upon details relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. With the President of the United States issuing a declassification executive order, and the appointment of Rep. Anna Luna (R-Fla.) as chairwoman of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, renewed interest in the release of JFK assassination documents is at an all-time high. Introduced into this extraordinary moment, Bart Kamp’s Prayer Man: More Than a Fuzzy Picture is an unprecedented decade-long investigation of the hidden and unpublicized facts associated with Lee Harvey Oswald’s last 48 hours.
Bart Kamp has produced a meticulous accounting of Lee Harvey Oswald, his movements, and the specific locations of other Texas School Book Depository employees inside the building during and shortly after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22nd 1963.
Prayer Man also examines the period of Oswald’s incarceration and interrogations. It presents an entirely new and multi-dimensional chronical of how local and federal law enforcement agencies gathered their evidence and took contemporaneous notes during Oswald’s interrogations that weekend. It reveals a dramatic new context in relation to understanding Lee Harvey Oswald’s innocence. And it examines, with impartial precision, the much discussed proposition that two cameramen, NBC’s Dave Wiegman and WBAP’s James Darnell, may have captured alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald exactly where he had claimed to be, standing near to the top of the stairs at the Elm Street entrance of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building seconds after the attack on President Kennedy’s motorcade; a revelation that is now being brought to the attention of congressional investigators.
Within these pages are many new and never-before published details that contrast the altered witness accounts that were represented before the Warren Commission and challenge many commonly accepted assumptions and interpretations. This work is a major contribution to JFK Assassination research, demystifying and correcting much of what has been erroneously reported, falsely assumed, and repeatedly passed along without critical reevaluation.
Prayer Man: More Than a Fuzzy Picture, Bart Kamp’s first book, brings a 21st Century discipline and perspective to the 20th Century’s most consequential unsolved crime, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
AMAZON Product description and Customer Review written by Alan Dale:
***** 5 Stars
The Story of the Story is Critical | Alan Dale
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2017
The publication of JFK and Vietnam in 1992 did more than create controversy and ignite a media firestorm. Its basic thesis that President Kennedy was opposed to sending U.S. combat forces to Vietnam and would have averted the terrible war and its consequences was denounced by some and applauded by others. The book was given sufficient thoughtful attention by a few which would change the nature and scope of the argument over what would he have done if he had lived. While being attacked (and defended) during the initial period following publication, it was singled-out and praised by former DCI William Colby and former special assistant to President Kennedy, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., adding credibility to the idea that up until that time the story had never been presented with such detail, authority, or documentation. In 1992, JFK and Vietnam received high praise from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. It was featured and recommended on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The book garnered nation-wide attention. For a time.
That time was cut short by the demonstrable suppression of the book by its publisher, Warner Books. After first surviving a very serious threat of intervention to block publication by a federal agency, within five months JFK and Vietnam was pulled from the shelves, found to be unavailable for purchase anywhere, and left its author unable to communicate with the publisher’s representatives. They stopped returning his calls. Not since the Pentagon Papers had there been such an attempt to deny the American public access to a book about Vietnam. Without a serendipitous encounter between the author and a distinguished member of a distinguished American family, the story of the book itself might well have ended as abruptly as it began. It is our very good fortune that the story did not end there: the publisher returned the legal rights of the book to its author, and 25 years later we have JFK and Vietnam, second edition.
JFK and Vietnam, second edition, should be publicized and promoted so that every student, every teacher, every citizen who volunteers for military service, and every aspiring politician will know the many false calculations, mistakes, manipulations, deceptions and intrigue which led to the Vietnam War. This essential work examines in detail the Shakespearean machinations of deception and counter-deception that took shape in the hidden maneuverings of a president who was determined to avoid being trapped and determined to never again repeat the mistakes of the Bay of Pigs. Dr. Newman documents President Kennedy’s navigation of a dangerous course through Cold War hot spots and a very divided administration. What eventually emerges is an astonishingly dishonorable deception: a deliberate attempt to manipulate the President of the United States to authorize a war policy to which he was fundamentally opposed.
This is more than JFK and Vietnam. It is JFK and Laos; JFK and the Pentagon; JFK and the CIA; JFK and the National Security establishment as it evolved during the years preceding his election. The president recognized and responded to a clever adversary during the two years, ten months and two days of his administration, which acted—within 48 hours of his violent death in Dallas—to reverse his policy on Vietnam and throw America headlong into the tragic war that ensued.
Five stars. Highest recommendation.
2017 JFK Document Release Shows Former Intelligence Analyst Got It Right
Alan Dale | WhoWhatWhy | 3 August, 2017
*****
Alan Dale | January 9, 2020
There are moments when complementary facets of our lives come together and find expression in the form of a favorite song, a movie, a particular book. I’m referring to what we’ve all experienced when the right something comes along at the right time. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s deeply personal memoir, American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family is, for me, such a book.
American Values is an authoritative introduction to America’s preeminent political family. It offers candid revelations from the perspective of our guide who lives the meaning of his family’s name, and it conveys, directly and convincingly, how one may choose to respond to the complex forms of adversity befalling our nation and our world. It also informs us quite a lot about the way real power is exercised in the modern world and the formidable forces against which John and Robert Kennedy were pitted during the 1960s. Ultimately, we are allowed to accompany the author as he courageously follows a path of illumination while exploring the dark places and true circumstances by which his family’s influence and much of the world’s hope was disrupted by gunfire.
Beginning with Chapter One, “Grandpa,” readers of a certain age will be challenged to rethink whatever they have accepted as probably true about the people whose lives and careers are relevant to the telling of this story. Younger readers, who come to this work as an introduction, without having to divest themselves from decades of character assassination, mythology and misrepresentation, will benefit from this portrait of the author’s patriarchal grandfather, Joseph Patrick Kennedy whose “integrity and horse sense” established foundational principles which would be passed down through successive Kennedy generations. Readers young and old may be startled by the author’s brief but informative remedial history lesson as he examines important dynamics of social and political power structures of the 1920s and ’30s through which his grandparents lived and which stand as starkly relevant to understanding much of what confronts us today.
Recollections of youthful encounters with colossal figures such as LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, memorable conversational sketches of Allen Dulles and others by Kennedy family friends and relatives, all kinds of interesting observations, amusing anecdotes and perceptions abound across many pages, but astute readers will recognize very early on, there’s more being offered than charming reminiscences. It is the backdrop, the context against which the array of privileged experiences being presented is told that distinguishes this narrative as particularly informed and noteworthy. RFK, Jr. has committed himself to examining various manifestations of the national security state as it responded, adversely, to President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and the reforms which they sought to ensure that our children’s children would be born into a world where reasonable men would value peace over war, justice over inequality, opportunity over exclusion, and freedom over the many different forms of tyranny and enslavement.
There is great joy and much color throughout this reading experience. There’s also the inevitable poignancy and heartbreak that we know. Above all, there is the ineluctable presence of unconditional love. Three people who receive special attention by the author are Lem Billings, Ena Bernard, and Ethel Kennedy. Their stories, and the very personal manner by which their stories are told, are among the most affecting of all that the author has shared.
American Values is an inspiring journey through one man’s life whose story is an astounding record of the people and events that shaped our nation during a period of unprecedented danger and opportunity. It is also an affirmation of all that we may see as what is best about our collective efforts as a nation, our collective aspirations to determine our destiny through the work of our own hands, to persevere through cruelties and obstacles, addictions, disappointment and profound loss, battling against complacency, facing our fears, while maintaining our faith, our conviction, and our willingness to dream things that never were, and say, “Why not?”
Five stars. Highest recommendation.
15 December, 2020
The Ochelli Effect 12-15-2020 Alan Dale
Devil Details Dialogues Alan Dale
This podcast contains a unique discussion between the esteemed Chuck Ochelli and Alan Dale. Alan is well known for participating in JFK conferences and his collaboration with many authors in the field. The conversation focused on his first book.
Who is Malcolm Blunt? Who else participated in the creation of Alan’s book? What is Alan Dale’s personal motivation for investigating the circumstances and history related to the murder of the 35th President?
The Devil is in the Details: Alan Dale with Malcolm Blunt on the Assassination of President Kennedy
* * *
11 August, 2025
Courtesy of The Dallas Action presented by Wall Street Window, Alan Dale speaks with Doug Campbell
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
James Madison University, 2 NOV , ’17
Dr. John M. Newman responds to questions about a November 2, 1994 interview involving himself, Jefferson Morley and a former CIA Liaison officer named Jane Roman who acknowledged that irregularities regarding pre-assassination handling of Oswald related inquiries suggests that some elements within the Agency regarded Oswald as a figure of operational interest 6 weeks prior to President Kennedy’s assassination.
Transcription:
Alan Dale (off camera): Dr. Newman, there was a key moment in your interview, in the company of Washington Post reporter, Jefferson Morley, November 3rd (probably the 2nd), 1994, you were sitting in the home of Jane Roman who thirty-one years earlier had signed off on information which she knew was false and misleading in response to a routine inquiry from the Mexico City (CIA) station about, ‘What do we have on this guy Oswald?’ It was the first week of October of 1963; it was six-weeks prior to the assassination; Jane Roman is a liaison desk-officer who doesn’t make protocol and is not deciding to do something on her own, but she is a reliable professional in a very, very important position. Thirty-one years later, you took her chronologically from the middle of 1962 until literally a few days prior to that request from the Mexico City station, and you showed her all of the documentation with her signature on it, indicating that she was apprised, she was aware, of things that certain other people inside the CIA were not aware of. Would you mind telling us, what she said, first, when you asked her, what’s your take on this?, and second, after you asked her, does this indicate to you an operational interest in Oswald six-weeks prior to the assassination?
Dr. Newman: Well, like you said, I showed her the documents first, and then I showed her the routing slips with her initials on them, and then I asked her about what that meant. After she saw the last document, the corners of her mouth curled up to the corners of her ears, and she got it. So, I already had her on record; we had two tape recorders going that day, mine and Jeff’s. And so, she said to me, “I’m signing off on something that’s not true.” And that was a breakthrough right there. And I said, well, why were you signing off on something that was not true? She said, “Look, I wasn’t involved, really. I wasn’t involved in the hanky-panky. It’s indicative of a keen operational interest in Lee Harvey Oswald.” And that’s not supposed to happen either, right? They’re not supposed to be interested at all, in the SAS, the Cuban Affairs staff. So, that was one of those breakthrough moments. It was not that long after the JFK Records Act, and, again, there was this feeling like, okay, so we can talk now, right? So there was no reason why not to just be engaged and she did and I put her in that position by asking her the right sequence and she blurted out …
Alan Dale: So, if I may, what she said in response to your direct question, which was recorded and transcribed by the Washington Post transcription service, you said, if I recall correctly, and it’s possible I don’t, but I believe you said, “I guess what I’m asking you to address head-on here is, does this indicate to you an operational interest in Oswald?” (Six weeks prior to the assassination.) And her response, without missing a beat was, “Yes. To me it indicates a keen interest held very closely on the need-to-know basis.”
Dr. Newman: “… on the need-to-know basis.” Mm-hm.
Alan Dale: Tell me, tell us what happened when you and Jeff walked out of that house.
Dr. Newman: Well, we just wondered what had taken place there. The chain got moved down the football field a little bit that day, like with Malcolm Blunt and Pete Bagley.”
[End of transcript]
* * *
